Video I posted earlier today

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I posted this on Ayn's site today and I thought that a lot of people here would enjoy it as well. The woman who wrote the 10 things every child with autism wishes you knew has written a lot of other books....1001 Great ideas for teaching and raising children with autism or aspergers and 10 things your student with autism wishes you knew to name a few. I really like this song even though Im not a country music fan and I dedicated it to all my kids not long ago on my FB page on Mothers Day but was not aware of this video.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlEWEO4cEAo&feature=player_embedded#at=137[/youtube]

Awesome video!

Great video!

I was expecting it to be bad because they started off with person-first language, and I much prefer to be called an autistic person than a person with autism. But #7 and #10 really made me cry, as well as the ending.

I call myself and my Aspie kids....Aspies and I call my daughter an Autie or Autistic. We know we and our kids are more than just Autistic....Im not into all the political correctness of it, I know some people get all upset if you call your kid an Aspie or use the word Autistic....I dont care

I have wondered about that whole "person first" language movement and how people feel about it. I have heard people who are adamant about both sides and I sure don't want to offend anyone but I really have no idea what is the best thing to say. I mean we say that my husband is diabetic not a person with diabetes.

I can't read while someone is talking/singing so I had to turn the volume down and the pictures behind the words made it hard to read too. There are certainly some great points in there but I wish it had been worded a bit differently so as not to come across as blanket statements that are true for all autistic people. The statement at the end bugs me ... to state that Einstein, Mozart and Van Gogh were all autistic ... it's pure speculation, not a known fact. If what's been said about Einstein not speaking until he was 4 years old is true I can believe that one, Mozart I don't know aside from being gifted and socially inappropriate what they're basing it on ... but Van Gogh was born with a brain lesion, drank absinthe and used lead based paints ... his eccentricities are attributable to other things.

Well, my reasoning about person-first language is that we only seem to use it for something bad. My gender isn't all there is to me, but no one seems to see a problem with me calling myself 'a woman'. My hair color is even less relevant, but no one claims me calling myself 'a blonde' is offensive (provided I'm not using that to insult my intelligence, of course). What makes autism different from those things, that we have to use convoluted language to make sure people know we're people?

But more importantly, I think people pay way too much emphasis on language, and not enough on the ideas being expressed. The outcry about Tropic Thunder was a good example - I watched the clip where they use the term 'ret*d', and they're actually making a very good point about stereotyping. To me, that situation was like freaking out about The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for having the word 'n****r' in there. But yet most of the disability movement seemed to be in an outcry about it.

I dont think the stuff about Mozart and Einstein being Autistic was in the book I think the parents that made the video put it in there. I also had trouble reading at first but they do give a lot of time to read and you can buy the book if you are interested.
I think when people say things about famous dead people having Asperger's they should say that they possibly could have had Asperger's....there was no such diagnosis then you know? So the possibility is there but to say that it is fact, it cant be. I think that is just a thing that people who have Aspies tell themselves or their kids to make them feel better. However there are some famous people who have been diagnosed autistic so that is who they should use if that is important. My son is totally blown away by the fact that the guy who invented Pokemon Satoshi Tajiri is an Aspie.